<\/p>\n
This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.<\/em><\/p>\n Two decades ago, a flight often meant a forced digital detox: no emails, no streaming, no scrolling \u2014 just a novel, a magazine, or maybe a nap. Today, passengers board planes expecting the same always-on internet they enjoy at home, and they\u2019re quick to judge an airline by its connectivity. As Meherwan Polad, senior vice president and chief commercial officer of Viasat, said on stage at Skift Global Forum 2025, \u201cThe tech is there, and it\u2019s been there a while. What\u2019s changed is our ability to let everybody use it at the same time \u2014 for free \u2014 without the system breaking down.\u201d<\/p>\n Viasat now powers Wi-Fi on more than 4,000 aircraft worldwide, with over 1,000 of those offering what Polad calls \u201cfull, fast, and free\u201d internet. Within three years, he expects the majority of commercial aircraft to offer free connectivity, serving well over a billion passengers annually.<\/p>\n Connectivity has transformed what it means to fly. \u201cGoing back 15 or 20 years ago, business would come to a stop when you boarded a plane,\u201d Polad recalled. \u201cThe biggest decision you had to make was peanuts or pretzels. Now I get messages from people saying, \u2018I closed a seven-figure deal while flying.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For passengers, in-flight Wi-Fi is about replicating home life at 35,000 feet: streaming Netflix, catching up on work, scrolling social media, or even closing multimillion-dollar deals. For airlines, it\u2019s a means to an end \u2014 building loyalty, boosting net promoter scores, and opening new monetization streams.<\/p>\n \u201cConnectivity isn\u2019t an end in itself,\u201d Polad said. \u201cIt\u2019s about loyalty, profitability, and competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most intriguing frontiers Viasat is opening is dynamic, location-based advertising in the air. Brands can engage passengers through contextual and privacy-safe targeting, reaching travelers based on where they\u2019re flying and what\u2019s happening on the ground below.\u00a0<\/p>\n Polad pointed to a recent campaign during the Boston Marathon. \u201cObviously, shoe companies and athletic brands were interested,\u201d he said. \u201cBut once they saw the opportunity, they started asking, \u2018Where are the other marathons? When are they happening?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The model extends beyond sports. Tech companies bought takeover placements during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and global brands are already eyeing the FIFA World Cup in 2026. Even B2B survey firms are leveraging flights to reach high-value business travelers en route to major conferences.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a real chance for brands to connect with passengers in a way that simply hasn\u2019t existed until now,\u201d Polad emphasized.<\/p>\n Polad was quick to stress that Viasat doesn\u2019t see itself as a utility. Instead, the company works hand-in-hand with airlines to tailor business models that fit their brand strategies and passenger expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cOne airline might just want to give internet for free to everybody, with an ad in front of it,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnother might prefer a hybrid model: pay for full access, or watch a 15-minute ad for a free session. Others create bundles of free options like entertainment or limited browsing.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal is always to maximize usage. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to put a system on your plane that only 5 percent of passengers use,\u201d Polad said. \u201cYou want 60, 70, 80 percent. The whole plane.\u201d<\/p>\n That requires more than just technology. Viasat assigns teams to sit down with airlines and co-design solutions. \u201cYou figure out what they want to achieve, then match the bandwidth and business model to that demand,\u201d Polad noted.<\/p>\n Behind the scenes, delivering consistent connectivity requires careful orchestration of satellites in different orbits. Viasat is combining geostationary (GEO) satellites with low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to balance heavy video usage with latency-sensitive applications.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key thing is having the right amount of bandwidth in the right place at the right time,\u201d Polad explained. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to run out of bandwidth flying over New York or London. GEOs flex capacity where it\u2019s needed most, while LEOs are great for instant responsiveness. Using them in combination ensures the experience is consistently great.\u201d<\/p>\n The result, he added, is that \u201ceven if everybody on the plane is watching Netflix, it\u2019ll still work.\u201d<\/p>\n For all the talk of satellites and bandwidth, Polad reminded the audience that the power of in-flight Wi-Fi is also deeply human. Air travel, he said, amplifies emotion \u2014 something advertisers would be wise to recognize.<\/p>\n \u201cI was watching this movie, The Hundred-Foot Journey, about an Indian family opening a restaurant in France,\u201d Polad shared. \u201cI found myself crying on the plane and thought, \u2018What am I doing?\u2019 But it reminded me how emotional you are while traveling. That\u2019s why it\u2019s such a powerful time for brands to connect with you.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201ccaptive audience,\u201d as he called it, is one of aviation\u2019s most underutilized assets. Unlike terrestrial ad environments, passengers in flight are both physically and emotionally primed to engage.<\/p>\n The future, Polad believes, is inevitable. \u201cDon\u2019t ever bet on internet usage going down,\u201d he said. \u201cMore people want to connect all the time, and each person wants to do more and more. The technology has to keep evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n Viasat is preparing by launching more satellites \u2014 its own and those of partners \u2014 to scale capacity. And airlines are moving quickly toward universal free access. From today\u2019s 1,000 free-enabled aircraft, Polad expects the number to triple in three years, reaching roughly 3,000 out of 6,000 planes.<\/p>\n That represents a billion-plus passengers annually \u2014 each one connected, engaged, and, for advertisers, newly reachable.<\/p>\n In-flight Wi-Fi has evolved from novelty to necessity. For passengers, it\u2019s about maintaining continuity in their digital lives. For airlines, it\u2019s a tool for loyalty and revenue. And for advertisers, it\u2019s an entirely new medium \u2014 emotionally charged, demographically valuable, and rapidly expanding.<\/p>\n Viasat sits at the center of this transformation, reshaping what it means to be connected in the air. As Polad put it: \u201cIt changes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information about Viasat\u2019s commercial aviation solutions, <\/em><\/strong>click here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This content was created collaboratively by<\/em> <\/em><\/strong><\/a>Viasat<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and Skift\u2019s branded content studio, <\/em><\/strong>SkiftX<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Rephrase in a different way as if you were a native American speaker as a content creation expert and do not talk about yourself or your experience in the text and do not show yourself as an artificial intelligence who wrote and fill the bullet point in the topic and speak the heart of the topic itself and dont take date of blog in ther first and dont take text like box of newsliter subscribe on post from content and romove all linke insert in content and and remove all affiliate disclosure phrases on content like this “This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links that allow us to earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please see our Disclosure Policy for more info” and “#” put in its place bullet point, and romove name of the web site or his links we are take a content from our new creation, and don’t publish clone new content more than just one time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner. Two decades ago, a flight often meant a forced digital detox: no emails, no streaming, no scrolling \u2014 just a novel, a magazine, or maybe a nap. Today, passengers board planes expecting the same always-on internet they enjoy at home, and they\u2019re quick to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[2316,501,940,7746,3092,3096,3097,1182,234,3095,7875,448,1316,677,3093,7877,3088,9875,2979,3038,3094,3098,351,7878,6092,851],"class_list":["post-10669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airlines","tag-advertising","tag-airlines","tag-american","tag-catalyst","tag-characters","tag-content","tag-creation","tag-dont","tag-experience","tag-expert","tag-in-flight","tag-inflight","tag-innovation","tag-loyalty","tag-native","tag-partner-content","tag-rephrase","tag-skift-global-forum","tag-skiftx-creative-studio","tag-skiftx-showcase-technology","tag-speaker","tag-talk","tag-travel","tag-viasat","tag-wi-fi","tag-wifi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10671,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669\/revisions\/10671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfanouscar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}From Peanuts or Pretzels to Business Deals in the Sky<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Advertising at Cruising Altitude<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Partner, Not Just Provider<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Tech Behind the Connection<\/strong><\/h2>\n
An Emotional Connection<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What\u2019s Next: Free, Fast, and Ubiquitous<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Bottom Line<\/strong><\/h2>\n